Contemplation On the Four Sublime States-2

— By FPJ Bureau | Jan 17, 2018 01:44 am

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Love, without desire to possess, knowing well that in the ultimate sense there is no possession and no possessor, this is the highest love. Love, without speaking and thinking of “I”, knowing well that this so-called “I” is a mere delusion. Love, without selecting and excluding, knowing well that to do so means to create love’s own contrasts, dislike, aversion and hatred.

Love, embracing all beings, small and great, far and near, be it on Earth, in the water, or in the air. Love, embracing impartially all sentient beings, and not only those who are useful, pleasing or amusing to us. Love, embracing all beings, be they noble-minded or low-minded, good or evil.

The noble and the good are embraced because love is flowing to them spontaneously. The low-minded and evil-minded are included because they are those who are most in need of love. In many of them the seed of goodness may have died merely because warmth was lacking for its growth, because it perished from cold in a loveless world.

Love, embracing all beings, knowing well that we all are fellow wayfarers through this round of existence — that we all are overcome by the same law of suffering. Love is a sublime nobility of heart and intellect which knows, understands and is ready to help.

Love, that is strength and gives strength: this is the highest love.

Love, which by the Enlightened One was named “the liberation of the heart”, “the most sublime beauty”, this is the highest love.

And what is the highest manifestation of love? To show to the world the path leading to the end of suffering, the path pointed out, trodden, and realized to perfection by Him, the Exalted One, the Buddha.

Through compassion the fact of suffering remains vividly present in our mind, even at times when we personally are free from it. It gives us the rich experience of suffering, thus strengthening us to meet it prepared, when it does befall us.

Compassion reconciles us to our own destiny by showing us the life of others, often much harder than ours.

Behold the endless caravan of beings, men and beasts, burdened with sorrow and pain! The burden of every one of them, we also have carried in bygone times during the unfathomable sequence of repeated births. Behold this, and open your heart to compassion!